TuftsDaily1-24-2012

THE TUFTS DAILY

Sunny 21/7

VOLUME LXV, NUMBER 4

by James

Pouliot

Daily Editorial Board

The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate voted on Dec. 9 to create a new Women’s Center Representative (WCR) Senate position, with the goal of providing a gender-conscious perspective on school issues.

The future representative will have voting power on all Senate items and will be elected early this semester as part of the normal process for replacing senators who are resigning or traveling abroad for the spring, according to junior Grainne Griffiths, a member of the Women’s Center organization Students Acting for Gender Equality (SAGE) who helped push the legislation through Senate.

The position will focus on the gendered components of the student government’s activities, according to Director of the Women’s Center Steph Gauchel. As with the four existing community representatives—from the Africana, Asian-American, Latino and LGBT Centers—the WCR will speak for students who might otherwise go unrepresented and in this case, students of any gender identity.

“My hope would be that the WCR would be thinking about what are the gender

implications of what the TCU Senate is trying to do now,” Gauchel said. “Beyond that, also thinking about how does any gender-related issue intersect with other identity issues, whether it’s racism, classism or homophobia—really putting an identity-based critique onto the issues that the TCU Senate is working on.”

The WCR was the first community representative to be created under a new process passed by a community referendum in fall 2010. To gain a seat on the Senate, the Women’s Center had to submit a petition in support of the position with at least 200 student signatures, Griffiths said. The petition had over 260 signatures when it was submitted, according to Senator Joe Thibodeau, a junior.

Members of the Women’s Center also had to attend two-thirds of the Senate’s Culture, Ethnicity and Community Affairs Committee meetings this fall before the Senate could vote to add a representative, according to Thibodeau.

Thibodeau proposed the creation of the WCR in last semester’s final Senate meeting in December, according to the meeting’s minutes. The measure was passed in a roll call vote with two senators abstaining and one, junior Senator John Rodli, dissenting.

Daily Editorial Board

University Information Technology (UIT) and Information Technology Services (ITS) will merge together on Feb. 1 to form Tufts Technology Services (TTS), the new main information technology service for the university. The goal of combining ITS and UIT is to simplify the services both organizations offer, according to Vice President for ITS and Chief Information Officer David Kahle.

The new service will make Tufts’ tech support more accessible, faster and integrated, according to Dawn Irish, UIT’s

Men’s lacrosse players benched for harassment

by Martha Shanahan and Melissa Wang

Daily Editorial Board

Twenty-seven members of the men’s lacrosse team have been penalized with a two-game suspension after an external investigation found that the athletes were guilty of “unacceptable behavior” at a women’s volleyball home game

against Smith College last semester, according to Dean of Undergraduate and Graduate Students John Barker and Director of Athletics Bill Gehling.

The Office of Equal Opportunity hired an attorney in September to conduct an external investigation after a Tufts student alleged that the athsee LACROSSE, page 2

see WOMEN, page 2

UIT, ITS merge, form Tufts Technology Services

By Xander Landen

TUFTSDAILY.COM

Thursday, January 24, 2013

TCU Senate adds Women’s Center representative

Where You Read It First Est. 1980

director of communications and organizational effectiveness. Traditionally, UIT provided technology services including Tufts’ email, data storage and wireless networking, while ITS conducted the underlying technical support for these services to students and faculty at the local level.

Representatives from UIT and ITS met last February to discuss how to better serve students and faculty, and ultimately decided to integrate into one organization, Irish said. According to a letter that Kahle sent out to the Tufts see TTS, page 2

Oliver Porter / The Tufts Daily

27 players on the men’s lacrosse team face a two-game suspension and other disciplinary consequences after an Office of Equal Opportunity investigation revealed the players were guilty of harassing Smith College volleyball players at a Sept. 21 match in Cousens Gymnasium.

Amalgamates signed to A Cappella Records

by Sarah

Zheng

Daily Editorial Board

Caroline Geiling / The Tufts Daily

Beginning on Feb. 1, University Information Technology (UIT) and Information Technology Services (ITS) will combine to form Tufts Technology Services (TTS), which will provide technology support to the Tufts community.

Inside this issue

The Amalgamates, Tufts’ oldest co-ed a cappella group, are now again represented by the San Francisco-based record label A Cappella Records (ACR), the group announced this month.

According to Amalgamates Music Director Justin Roth, ACR contacted the singers a few months ago after the release of the Amalgamates’ twelfth studio album, Hands Off the Mannequin! (2011).

The group attracted the label’s interest after winning Best Mixed Collegiate Album for “Hands Off the Mannequin!” and Best Mixed Collegiate song for “Boy Lilikoi” at the 2012 Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards(CARA),Amalgamates President Morgan Babbs, a sophomore, said.

“We decided that it would be really good for publicity and that it would make us more official, since A Cappella Records produces tons of great music,”

Roth, a sophomore, explained. “They do tons and tons of collegiate a cappella groups across the country and independent artists, including the Beelzebubs, the Jackson Jills and the Dartmouth Aires.”

Former Amalgamates president Foster Lockwood said that the group had been represented by ACR in the past. “[The group] took a year or two where there was a hiatus because [ACR was] sort of a fledgling company and they didn’t really come through on the stuff they said they would,” Lockwood, a senior, said.

After recently reorganizing its management, ACR negotiated a contract with the Amalgamates that would let the group handle all mechanical and digital rights on all albums they release, Lockwood said.

“They also helped us update an artist page [on iTunes], so we’ll have an artist page in the future, which is pretty cool,” he said. see AMALGAMATES, page 2

Today’s sections

Harlem-based rapper A$AP Rocky defies expectations in new album.

Track and Field teams held strong at Saturday’s Bowdoin Invitational.

see ARTS, page 5

see Sports, Back

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Op-Ed Comics Classifieds Sports

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New community representative to assist with gendered issues WOMEN

continued from page 1

Rodli defended his vote, arguing that issues of gender-consciousness could be adequately addressed by existing representatives of any sex.

“A culture rep to me is supposed to represent a minority group on campus or some group that isn’t necessarily always going to have a strong voice in the Senate,” Rodli said. “Although I think that the technical position is a ‘gender rep,’ not a ‘women’s rep,’ it’s coming from the Women’s Center, and there are literally more females than men on campus—really the only majority that exists.”

Although Rodli said he didn’t personally receive any negative feedback for his vote, Griffiths strongly disagreed with his reasoning.

“It’s not about having two X chromosomes,” Griffiths said.

“It’s about representing the Women’s Center, which has a very specific set of things we find important in terms of being gender-conscious.”

Griffiths said that genderneutral housing and the Tufts University Police Department’s GoSafe transportation service are examples of issues that might be better addressed with the addition of a specifically gender-conscious voice in the Senate. Thibodeau added that there could be a place for such

a voice in discussions about the women’s studies program and the installment of security cameras on campus.

“All of these different things are related to the concept [of gender],” Thibodeau said. “Quite frankly, a lot of what we discuss deals directly with gender.

Gendered issues are inherently political, and this voice was definitely missing from the body.”

Before the student body elects the WCR, interested students will apply to Gauchel for the position, Griffiths said. Such candidates often go unchallenged, with last year’s vote for the Latino Community Representative being the first contested community representative election.

Griffiths said that if there are multiple candidates, Gauchel is required to submit at least two candidates to the student body.

As director of the Women’s Center, Gauchel has the power to choose not to submit more than two applications, even if more than two students apply, Griffiths explained.

“For me, it’s very important that that person is thinking of gender very broadly—thinking about issues that have been traditionally framed as women’s issues,” Gauchel said. “It’s someone who’s versed in gender issues and has given this thought and ideally some time in the classroom.”

Gauchel emphasized that the representative does not neces-

Caroline Geiling / The Tufts Daily

The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate will now have a Women’s Center Representative (WCR), who will be elected by the student body this semester. sarily have to be someone who identifies as female, only someone who has an investment and education in gender issues.

“It will most likely be one

of the three students from the Women’s Center who worked on the legislation,” Griffiths said, which includes her and two other students who also

Men’s lacrosse players to face additional punishments LACROSSE

continued from page 1

letes harassed Smith volleyball players at the Sept. 21 game from the stands in Cousens Gymnasium. The student accused the players of calling out sexist and racist insults that disparagingly referenced the Smith players by name and threatened them during the game.

The investigation, according to a Letter to the Editor from Barker and Gehling first posted on the Daily’s JumboSlice blog, revealed through interviews with other spectators, players and coaches from both volleyball teams that players on the men’s lacrosse team were the ones who exhibited inappropriate behavior at the match.

“The investigation confirmed that some Tufts students behaved highly inappropriately and in a manner not consistent with the values of good sportsmanship held by Tufts or NESCAC,” Barker told the Daily in an email. “Specifically, Tufts found that a group of students from the men’s lacrosse team repeatedly made offensive

and demeaning comments about players in the game and/or encouraged other team members in such misconduct.”

Barker explained that some of the lacrosse players in attendance were also guilty of abusing alcohol.

“They also engaged in inappropriate behaviors involving alcohol, such as underage drinking, providing alcohol to minors, attending a sports event while intoxicated and consuming alcohol at the volleyball match,” he said.

In light of the incident, Barker said that University President Anthony Monaco and Gehling went to Smith yesterday to apologize directly and explain the investigation’s result to the Northampton, Mass. college’s president, athletic director and volleyball coach.

“The meeting was very positive and they were very appreciative of the visit as well as the Tufts response to the incident, which they felt was appropriate,” Barker said.

All members of the team present at the game will be benched for two games in the

’Mates to rerelease awardwinning album AMALGAMATES

continued from page 1

The ‘Mates will rerelease Hands Off the Mannequin! at the end of this month, after previously working with CB Productions ProducerEngineer John Clark, Roth said. Another upcoming studio album release with around 11 to 12 songs is also in the final stages of the editing process, according to Babbs.

“When the time comes [for the album release], there will be flyers to links on iTunes and posts on Facebook pages, so look out for that,” she said.

The ‘Mates will also be performing at the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin over spring break and have several shows scheduled at other colleges, she said. In addition, the group is having two shows at Tufts in the coming semester, a winter show on Feb. 22 at Sophia

Gordon Hall and a spring show on Apr. 26, Roth said.

“In the second semester, we have fun with really bad puns,” Lockwood said about the concert themes. “We haven’t decided on a theme yet, but the winter show traditionally is more produced and should be exciting.”

The Amalgamates have been holding spring auditions this week and will be adding new members soon, Babbs said.

According to Lockwood, the group, which was founded in 1984, sees a lot of change each year with new members and different personalities.

“It’s really cool to see how each year the group can change in such a way but also remain just as important and just as exciting as it always has been,” he said.

upcoming season and have been asked to write letters of apology to the Tufts and Smith volleyball coaches and the two teams, Barker and Gehling explained in the letter.

According to Barker the Department of Athletics and the Office of the Dean of Student Affairs and Judicial Affairs will both be involved in determining potential additional punishments for the students involved.

“The Judicial Affairs Officer or Dean of Student Affairs will meet with each student individually to discuss their conduct,” Barker explained. “Judicial consequences could range from a non-disciplinary warning to suspension, depending on the nature of the offense and a student’s prior history.”

Men’s Lacrosse Coach Mike Daly said the team is working on evolving in the aftermath of the investigation.

“Clearly, this is a regrettable event and situation,” Daly told the Daily in an email. “Our team is moving forward at this point, using this unfortunate

helped spread the petition.

“One of us is probably going to do it because we’re familiar with [the] Senate and the Women’s Center.”

event as a learning and growing experience,” he said.

Daly did not comment on how benching 27 players for the first two games would affect the team’s upcoming season.

Junior Rose Barrett, whose Sept. 25 op-Ed in the Daily detailed the harassment, said that she is more concerned with a developing aggressive culture on campus and not just the single volleyball game.

“I had hoped that the response to the outcome of the investigation would include a plan for discussion and education—definitely of those individuals involved, and ideally of the entire student body,” Barrett, a junior, told the Daily in an email. “I hope the apologies given by those involved are sincere and come from a place of understanding why the comments they made were hurtful and offensive,” she said.

— Lizz Grainger contributed reporting.

Tufts Technology Services integrates ITS, UIT TTS

continued from page 1

community this week, UIT and ITS members also received feedback about the plan from Tufts community members and a consulting firm.

One of the goals for TTS is to reduce the complexity of finding the right service, according to Kahle. He outlined what the integrated service will entail, including that it will make the user experience for students and faculty simpler.

“A single number to call, one web address to remember and a team of IT professionals fully aware of the entire portfolio of IT services available to the community,” Kahle explained. “[This] will result in more responsive service.”

Alison Tai, a sophomore and computer science major, looks forward to a modified TTS website.

“The UIT site right now is really messy and hard to navigate,” Tai said. “I’m glad there

will soon be a cleaner, more centralized site.”

Tufts’ technology services had been decentralized since the 1990s, with UIT and ITS holding diverging responsibilities, according to Irish. Back then, computers were not as advanced and departments all used different forms of software and data storage, she said.

Because of this, Tufts separated ITS from UIT. Today, with large, interoperable tech services developed by UIT such as Trunk there is no longer the need for individual programs, and so the merge comes from a desire to modernize the tech support offered at Tufts, according to Irish.

“Now that computers are more integrated, we must become more integrated as well,” she said.

Irish said that websites from both services will be consolidated, as will contact information and the type of tech support offered.

“You won’t have to know how the organization is organized to get the help that you need,” Irish said.

Kahle explained that a new IT Service Desk is under development as part of an effort to attain centralized support.

“The new IT Service Desk will offer extended hours, be accessible through multiple channels— web, phone, chat, in-person— and provide ‘first-call’ resolution for the majority of IT support incidents,” he said.

Kahle believes that bringing ITS and UIT together will bridge gaps in communication that exist between those who design Tufts’ technology and those who service it.

“Through coordinated planning and investment we can also better ensure that the many, interdependent technologies required to effectively support academic and administrative activities are up-to-date and consistently maintained,” he said.

Features

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Gun violence solutions go beyond control by

Hannah Fingerhut

Daily Editorial Board

This article is part two of three in a series on issues surrounding gun control.

The role of guns in American society goes far beyond mass shootings. Over 1,000 gun deaths have occurred since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, according to a Jan. 23 Slate.com article.

However, many do not see increased gun control as the only solution. According to a poll conducted by CNN, Time Magazine and ORC International this month, 61 percent of Americans believe that stricter gun control laws would not reduce gun violence in America.

Curbing crime Jim Wallace, executive director of the Gun Owners’ Action League (GOAL), argued that gun control should be approached differently. GOAL is the official state association for Massachusetts of the National Rifle Association (NRA). According to Wallace, gun control should focus more on cracking down on criminal gun users.

“The gun control debate always focuses on what the lawful gun owner can and can’t do and unfortunately it really distracts from the real message we need to be sending ... which is dealing with the human criminal element,” he said. “Most of [the president’s and governor’s proposals] were a result of the Newtown [shooting]. If you look at all the proposals from the governor and from the president, none of them actually deals with the killer in the schoolyard.”

Wallace recounted a meeting he had five years ago with the public safety officials who run the gun licensing system in Massachusetts. When asked how many people applied for a license and were refused, they replied that they don’t keep that information.

“I said, ‘Really? So you’re spending millions of dollars on a database of the people who can own guns, but you’re not spending a dime tracking the people who you know shouldn’t be in possession of guns?’”

Wallace said. “I think that’s why the gun laws here in Massachusetts are so inverted ... they need to reverse them to the point where they’re actually going after the bad guys rather than worrying about what we can and cannot own.”

Although pro-gun and gun control groups have differing views on how to best tackle the issue, they both try to address the need to curb gun violence and crime.

“People have their second amendment right to own a firearm and if they can pass a background check and if they’re not doing anything that looks like falsifying an ID or purchasing for someone else, that’s not the business that we’re into,” Federal Relations Officer for Boston Mayor Thomas Menino’s Office of Intergovernmental Relations Jake Sullivan said. “We’re after criminals — not gun control, but crime control.”

Blaming the media Throughout the continuing national discourse on gun control, legislators and the American public alike have scrutinized the effects of guns and graphic violence in film, television and video games.

“The entertainment industry has long been blamed for creating a glorification of violence, so whenever there’s some kind of mass murder, some awful episode like Aurora, Colo. or the Newtown shootings or Virginia Tech, people point their finger at the entertainment industry and say, ‘you need to stop doing what you’re doing or reduce what you’re doing,’” John Richard Skuse, professor of political science Jeff Berry said. “And it doesn’t seem to ever happen. I don’t expect anything to change on that.”

NRA Vice President Wayne LaPierre has blamed the entertainment industry for the proliferation of gun violence. Senior Adam Cohen, who has been a recreational and sport shooter for eight years, suggested that this assumption is unfounded.

“The argument against violence in video games has been made since forever, since as long as video games have existed. Is there perhaps a rotten apple who saw and

Nick Pfosi / The Tufts Daily

Some suggest that gun control is not the only answer to decreasing gun violence in America. played a violent game and so he decided to enact all that violence? Perhaps,” Cohen said. “[But] I think we’re capitalizing on isolated cases to try to make an argument about the whole thing. Correlation is not causation. In this case, violence in video games is not something that’s causing an epidemic of shooters and murderers. It’s just not.”

Both the gun lobby and gun control supporters often challenge the media’s role in both covering and perpetuating violent gun-related incidents.

“I think another issue that’s pretty salient is that these massacres attract so much media attention,” Nick Vik, founder of Tufts’ current Gun Club, said. “I think that the fact that we’re sickly fascinated with these shootings, with the killers, and the fact that these people’s faces are being flashed across television screens ... there’s sort of a sick glorification going on of some of the people who perpetrated these atrocities. I think that’s a huge problem as well.”

Vik, a senior, also took issue with the lack of attention that the other 1,000 gun deaths since the Newtown shooting have

received. Homicide, suicide and accidents, he argued, need to be included in the conversation.

“I think that this needs to be something that is discussed not only with respect to Sandy Hook and with respect to the Colorado movie theater shooting, but also in general — the individual killings, the murders, the gang violence — because those things are just as important even if they don’t capture as much media attention,” Vik said.

An issue of public health While many take strong stances in the conversation around gun control, some — including director of the Tufts community health program Edith Balbach — focus more broadly on America’s prevalent culture of gun violence.

“Most countries in the world treat gun violence and gun control as a public health issue. That is, if you’re going to create an environment in which all people have the ability to attain good health, if that’s your number one value and you bring that framing to gun control, obviously what you’re

Obama’s gun control package In the wake of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., President Barack Obama last week announced 23 executive actions and additional legislative proposals for Congress in an effort to reduce gun violence. Here are a few significant ones, taken from the official White House website, www.whitehouse.gov: Executive actions: • Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.

• Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.

• Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement authorities the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.

• Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.

• Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.

• Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety

technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies.

• Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries [Kathleen] Sebelius [the Secretary of Health and Human services] and [Arne] Duncan [the Secretary of Education] on mental health.

Proposed Congressional actions: • Require criminal background checks for all gun sales • Reinstate and strengthen the ban on assault weapons that was in effect from 1994 to 2004 • Limit ammunition magazines to 10 rounds.

• Create serious punishments for gun trafficking • Finally give the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) a confirmed director • Better understand how and when firearms are used in violent death; invest an additional $20 million to help expand the National Violent Death Reporting System from 18 currently participating states to all 50 states.

• Help schools develop and implement emergency plans by providing $30 million in grants — compiled by Hannah Fingerhut

going to look at doing is having as few guns as possible out there,” Balbach said. “In the United States, we have not traditionally framed gun control as a public health issue.

We talk about it as a rights issue ... and that makes a big difference because the question is not what would be the impact on the health of this community if we’re all heavily armed. The question is, ‘do we all have a right to have our guns.’”

Balbach likened this situation to the arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States.

“Did that make the world a safer place because we were getting progressively bigger missiles on both sides? Absolutely not,” she said. “So when you have people saying the only way for our community to be safe — because criminals are going to have guns — is we all have to have guns too, then criminals have to get better guns. You can sort of see how you have these little mini arms races going around.”

While many goals of gun control proponents’ are very short-term, Cohen feels that the discussion should take a more longterm approach to improve the health of the wider community.

“There are two very different ways of looking at it — there’s a long-term solution, which is how do you end gun violence in America, which is through education, through improving education and job opportunities in low income areas because when you look at statistics, that’s where most of the gun crime is,” he said. “But that’s [decades] of trying to forcibly change the culture of the country. So that doesn’t appeal to people when you say how do you stop gun violence because that’s a century from now when we’re finally going to see the real effect of it.”

Although Balbach agreed that there should be a ban on assault weapons and high magazines, she argued that it would be a mistake to assume that enacting this legislation will automatically ensure safety.

Rather, Balbach advocates conversationbased grassroots initiatives that encourage healthy environments, as well as starting to approach gun control primarily as a public health issue.

“I think building a greater understanding of the hazard you’re bringing into your home, and how to mitigate that hazard, and certainly thoughtful consideration on is it worth it,” Balbach said. “You know, to really get people to engage the significant public health issues before they exercise that right to bear arms. I think it couldn’t help but make things better.”

“There are a lot of public health issues out there where we can’t have perfect solutions, because perfect doesn’t exist,” she added. “But we’ve got to be able to do better than this. That’s kind of my bottom line — we’ve got to do better than this.”

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Album Review

A$AP Rocky lives up to hype with debut album

by Veronica

Little

Daily Editorial Board

A$AP Rocky, a 24-year-old Harlem rapper, is just now reemerging after his initial star-

Long.Live.A$AP A$AP Rocky RCA Records dom to the delight of fans and critics alike. Lauded by many as a promising rapper to watch in coming years, Rocky has not disappointed with his most recent release, “Long.Live.A$AP.” An album marked by clever beats, lyrical dominance and unique style, “Long.Live.A$AP” is the long awaited album following Rocky’s mixtape “Live.Love.

A$AP” that was released to rave reviews in 2011.

Indeed, it was this first impression that caught the attention of RCA Records and culminated in RCA offering Rocky a $3 million record deal based on the early buzz surrounding him. After this vote of confidence, the music community patiently awaited his full-length album. However, after a series of pushbacks and new schedules, the album began to seem more like an empty promise. Indeed, the frequent delays lent legitimacy to the claim that A$AP Rocky was just another hip-hop gimmick capitalizing on the flippant desires of an eager and, oftentimes, fickle public.

In the face of these doubts, “Long.Live.A$AP” was released early this year, defying conven-

tions by capturing the attention of critics and hip-hop lovers alike. A product of his Harlem upbringing, Rocky represents a flashy and ambitious faction of New York rappers. Heavily influenced by The Diplomats, a Harlem based hip-hop group, “Long.Live.A$AP” can most readily be compared to Rocky’s musical time capsule, showcasing the different influences of his 1990’s Harlem youth.

It is the triumphs and traumas of his early upbringing that come to define the album.

“Fashion Killa” and “F**kin’ Problems,” two popular tracks on the album, are identifiably within genre, with allusions to women and wealth. These tracks represent Rocky’s flash, fervor for the spotlight and commercial appeal. Simultaneously, the album contains tracks like “Phoenix” and “Suddenly” that are hauntingly stark depictions of poverty, monotony and struggle. In “Suddenly,” lyrics like “Everybody have roaches, but our roaches ain’t respect us,” are piercing reminders of A$AP’s Harlem origins.

At once commercial and shocking experimental, “Long.Live.A$AP” represents a unique and special hybrid as it manages to be simultaneously accessible and challenging. If the collaborators are any indication — collaborators range from trending rappers like Drake and Kendrick Lamar to more quizzical choices like Santigold and Florence Welch on the hook of “I Come Apart” — this is an important and influential album, and it is carefully

Brennan Schnell via Flickr Creative Commons

‘Long.Live.A$AP’ features collaborations with artists such as Florence Welch, Drake and Kendrick Lamar. engineered throughout.

Rocky is a clever collage artist, bringing together diverse styles and sounds and creating something entirely new and exciting. “Long.Live.A$AP” is a fluid and dynamic exploration of the hip-hop genre of the past and its current manifestations. Rocky seems unafraid of breaking musical convention while remaining respectfully aware of his many influences, bringing hip-hop into the future.

The past year has been filled

with transformation for the hip-hop community as a whole.

With 2012 came the emergence of burgeoning hip-hop talents like Frank Ocean and Azealia Banks who defied both musical and sexual conventions. These artists represent a new generation of rap and R&B, challenging the musical stereotypes of their respective genres. Ocean, Banks and Rocky can be listed among the musical mavericks of hip-hop past and present. They use conventional hip-hop meth-

ods to create vigorous and rebellious new sounds.

The fanfare for Rocky is certainly not unjustified. Rocky seems to be ushering in a new generation of rappers who are technically brilliant in addition to being lyrically ambitious and self-aware. A$AP Rocky combines commercial accessibility with experimentation, generating some killer beats while also mixing in melodic riffs and shiny synth.

The hype is true, homies: A$AP Rocky is the rapper to watch.

Concert Review

Film Review

Mission of Burma still strong after 30 years

‘The Last Stand’ contains few thrills

by Jaqueline

Noack

Daily Editorial Board

Boston locals Mission of Burma performed a solid show along with opening band Reports at The Sinclair in Cambridge last Saturday.

Though opening band Reports was a tad disappointing, Mission of Burma more than made up for the concert’s slow start.

This cult post-punk band has been around since 1979, and while the band members are likely in their 50s, they more than held their own that night. It was especially nice to see them perform so close to Boston, where their fan base is strong. During the performance the audience shouted out references to Burma’s past concerts and other Boston bands from the ‘80s. The audience age ranged from 18-50 years old, which is telling of Burma’s timeless and accessible post-punk sound.

Burma played classic songs from its 1981 EP, “Signals, Calls and Marches,” including “This Is Not a Photograph,” “Red” and “Academy Fight Song,” as well as over half of the tracks from their latest album “Unsound” (2012). Every song had the audience moving, whether it was jumping, dancing or bobbing along. They topped the night off with a double encore and an amazing cover of the Stooges’ “I Feel Alright”.

There is much to be said about a band that formed in the late 1970s, took a 20-year hiatus and then returned in the early 2000s with three of the four original members.

Although Martin Swope is no longer with the band, his tape-manipulation skills were

very much present, though they are now handled by Bob Weston. Mission of Burma has a tradition of recording random snippets during the live performance and playing them back in between songs. These “invisible band members” — Swope in the ‘80s and now Weston — are in charge of the sound engineering behind these tape manipulations, which play a large role in the Mission of Burma concert experience.

As for the three band members on stage, each has an extremely different personality and stage presence, which makes for an interesting and surprisingly cohesive dynamic. Lead singer and guitarist Roger Miller was composed and effortlessly talented. Bassist Clint Conley was casual and understated, and enjoyed the music as much as the audience did. Meanwhile, drummer Peter Prescott was wild, spontaneous and very much enjoyed shouting. Throughout the night, it was easy to forget their age.

The tight yet comfortable atmosphere of the Sinclair added to the experience; the venue transported both the band and the audience to the punk and post-punk scene of the 70s. Aside from the masterful musicianship, the night was full of guest appearances, including Roger Miller’s brother Ben on saxophone, Bob Weston on bass and DMZ lead singer Jeff Conolly. You might think that seven men past their prime on stage might be a snooze-fest, but their passion and appreciation for music surpassed any and all expectations. Mission of Burma, plus its spesee BURMA, page 6

by

Dan O’Leary

Daily Editorial Board

If you saw the trailer for “The Last Stand” in the theater alongside movies like “Django Unchained” or “Zero Dark Thirty,” you

The Last Stand Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Forest Whitaker, Johnny Knoxville Directed by Kim Jee-Woon wouldn’t be wrong in assuming that the film would be a miss. Based off of a preview filled with random explosions, Johnny Knoxville and groan-inducing Arnold Schwarzenegger one-liners, it appeared that “The Last Stand” would be the perfect embodiment of movies released in January, historically known as a dumping ground for studios to unload some questionable product. Surprisingly enough, all of the riff raff surrounding the film is mired in misconception. “The Last Stand” is not as terrible as the previews would lead you to believe. If you check your expectations at the door and doesn’t take the movie too seriously, then “The Last Stand” is a decently entertaining, albeit mindless, action flick.

The movie has been heavily promoted as the comeback film for Schwarzenegger, who left the movie industry to become governor of California in 2003 and has not had a starring role since “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” (2003). He stars as Ray Owens,

a former Los Angeles Police Department officer who is now the sheriff of Sommerton Junction, Ariz. on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Ray leads a small police force, including Mike Figuerola (Luis Guzm) and Sarah Torrance (Jaimie Alexander), in protecting the town. The majority of the residents leave town for the weekend to support their local football team, leaving the town conveniently empty for the duration of the movie.

The beginning of the film meanders through the comings and goings of the sleepy town, while setting up a parallel plot line of drug lord Gabriel Cortez’s (Eduardo Noriega) escape from an FBI convoy. Cortez flees towards the U.S.-Mexico border in a custom Corvette that routinely pushes 200 mph, with law enforcement in hot pursuit, led by Agent John Bannister (Forest Whitaker). The drug kingpin and his associates continue to outmaneuver and eliminate SWAT teams and barricades until the only obstacle between Cortez and freedom is Ray, backed by his team of deputies and local weapons enthusiast Lewis Dinkum (Knoxville).

Sound ridiculous yet? That’s because it is. The plot of “The Last Stand” is merely a weak structure designed to move us from one action piece to the next. That in itself is not necessarily a bad thing for a movie that hearkens back to Schwarzenegger’s heyday of 80’s and 90’s action blockbusters, where the action was often contained within fairly ridiculous plotlines that didn’t take themselves too serisee STAND, page 6

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Arts

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Mission of Burma impresses crowds at Cambridge’s The Sinclair BURMA

continued from page 5

cial guests, had more raw energy and talent than many bands we see today. They formed a strong connection with the audience by engaging in playful banter throughout. It was particularly pleasing when drummer Prescott broke from his crazy stage presence and sincerely thanked the audience for showing up. An audience member yelled back, “Thank you for getting me through high school!”

Mission of Burma’s performance was necessary to make up for Reports’ rather lackluster opening at 9 p.m. For the most part, their act sounded like noise with a beat. Their combination of jangly guitars, overwhelming drums and weak lead vocals left the audience fairly static, although their second-to-last

song consisted of 15 minutes worth of solid instrumental music. If anything, they prepared the audience for the headliner, which is what most openers should hope to do.

Ultimately, though, the pair of bands put on a good performance that reminded audiences of a sort of golden age in Boston music. In the past couple of years, Boston and its surrounding areas have been graced with live performances by garage rockers The Del Fuegos, post-punkers Gang of Four and new-wavers Lyres, all great bands from the 70’s and 80’s. All performances, Gang of Four’s in particular, were mind-blowing in their own way, allowing for many younger audience members to experience these bands live even 30 years after their formation. Mission of Burma was no exception.

Courtesy of Merrick Morton / Lionsgate

‘The Last Stand’ is the first starring role for Arnold Schwarzenegger since he ended his term as governor of California.

Schwarzenegger returns to action in ‘Last Stand’ STAND

continued from page 5

Bradalmanac via Flickr Creative Commons

Saturday’s concert was full of guest appearances, including Jeff Conolly and Ben Miller on saxophone.

ously. The issue with “The Last Stand” is that for a movie whose focus should be on thrill and spectacle, it often spends far too much time on plot and uninteresting characters.

Due to a weak script and poor character development, the actors are never really able to move beyond the one-note roles that have been written for them.

Kim Jee-Woon, a successful Korean director who marks his first American production with “The Last Stand,” makes the action sequences in this film work to his advantage. A series of imaginative car chases are sprinkled throughout the movie, adding a shot of adrenaline to the otherwise dull proceedings in the build-up to the film’s third

act. The climax of the movie works well as a modern take on a classic Western shoot-out, with the bare town quickly becoming a playground for the action to unfold in the faceoff between Ray and Cortez’s henchmen.

One drawback to the action is the often gratuitous violence that comes attached, with people and body parts going down in explosions of blood for no real reason other than to make use of the film’s R-rating.

While the film is certainly not going to win any accolades, clever action sequences save the movie from its poor script and acting. For those looking for a few hours of escapist entertainment that has no real substance, “The Last Stand” will be an adequate if not particularly memorable choice.

Thursday, January 24, 2013

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THE TUFTS DAILY Martha E. Shanahan Editor-in-Chief

Editorial Nina Goldman Brionna Jimerson Managing Editors Melissa Wang Executive News Editor Jenna Buckle News Editors Shana Friedman Lizz Grainger Stephanie Haven Amelie Hecht Victoria Leistman Patrick McGrath Audrey Michael James Pouliot Abigail Feldman Assistant News Editors Daniel Gottfried Xander Landen Justin Rheingold Annabelle Roberts Sarah Zheng Lily Sieradzki Executive Features Editor Jon Cheng Features Editors Hannah Fingerhut Jacob Passy Amelia Quinn Falcon Reese Derek Schlom Charlotte Gilliland Assistant Features Editors Jessica Mow Shannon Vavra Melissa MacEwen Executive Arts Editor Dan O’Leary Arts Editors Rebecca Santiago Assistant Arts Editors Claire Felter Elizabeth Landers Veronica Little Jacqueline Noack Akshita Vaidyanathan Elayne Stecher Bhushan Deshpande David Kellogg Seth Teleky Peter Sheffer Denise Amisial Jehan Madhani Louie Zong Keran Chen Nicholas Golden Scott Geldzahler

Editorial | Letters

Thursday, January 24, 2013

EDITORIAL

Women’s representative to the Senate small answer to large problem

The decision by the TCU Senate to create a Women’s Center Representative position makes a vital and earnest attempt to alleviate misrepresentation in the Senate, but glosses over the larger problem: a fundamental misrepresentation of the campus in the elected body. The fact that this position is being created is just one piece of evidence in this. The gender balance among elected senators rests at an unsatisfactory 19 men to nine women, but the election of one person to represent a center that represents half the campus is as illogical as the election of one person to represent a sexual orientation, race or other group in totality.

This situation does not suggest a conscious opposition to better representation in the Senate. The widespread support for the establishment of this position

in the Senate and on campus, backed by petition, points quite clearly otherwise.

In reality, the problem is fundamental in the very basic way the Senate operates ­— that is, in its electoral activities.

Advertising for the opportunity to run for a vacant Senate seat, the simplest way to improve the number and diversity of people running for Senate, can generously be described as modest in scope. The Senate remains an inward-looking group, whose activities resemble more so those of a club than the open-source, accessible works of the community organization it should be emulating. More often than not, this could end up discouraging the participation of female students who see a rather unwelcoming environment and a small number of female senators.

The decision to create the new com-

munity representative position is a positive step, put simply, because it could add one more female voice to a body that does not necessarily promote the inclusion of all voices with the actions that it takes and the way that it operates.

Whoever is chosen for the position will be able to put forward the opinions of one woman on campus while attempting to represent many. This is an admirable cause for everyone, but an unfortunately flawed one. One woman does not represent the multivariate experiences of all women on campus. The larger problem of structural obstacles to diversity in the Senate must be overcome by the Senate’s taking action greater than the creation of one position. The body should encourage the type of reforms in its operation that make running as feasible as possible.

and members of our men’s lacrosse team were responsible for that behavior.

All members of the lacrosse team who were in attendance at the game will be benched for two games during the upcoming season. While we do not seek to penalize team members who were not involved in the incident, it is the nature of team play that sometimes one’s fortunes are told by the behavior of others.

Personal apologies by Tufts administrative leaders have been offered to the Smith administration, and members of the men’s lacrosse team who were in attendance at the game are also being asked to write letters of apology to both the Tufts and Smith coaches and their teams. In addition, any individual student who is found to have violated the Tufts Student Code of Conduct will face the judicial processes of the Office of Student Affairs.

We want to stress that the behavior

documented in the OEO investigation would be unthinkable in a classroom or residence hall, and it is equally unacceptable at a sporting event. There is no scenario within collegiate team sports that would support the use of race or gender as the basis for jeering, heckling or taunting members of a team.

While we encourage you to come out and support our athletic teams, it is important to do so in a respectful and positive manner.

keran chen

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Letter to the Editor Dear Editor, Last semester, we told you that an investigation was underway into the events that took place during a women’s volleyball team game between Tufts University and Smith College in September. This investigation was initiated as the result of a complaint brought by a Tufts student who attended the game and afterwards reported inappropriate audience behavior to the Office of Equal Opportunity.

Although the specifics of the report remain confidential, as is customary with such reports, we want to let the Tufts community know that the investigation is complete and involved a thorough analysis of the incident. Spectators, players and coaches from both Tufts and Smith College were interviewed, and all individuals were given an opportunity to provide information from their own perspective. The investigation concluded that unacceptable behavior did occur,

The Tufts Daily is a nonprofit, independent newspaper, published Monday through Friday during the academic year, and distributed free to the Tufts community. EDITORIAL POLICY Editorials represent the position of The Tufts Daily. Individual editors are not necessarily responsible for, or in agreement with, the policies and editorials of The Tufts Daily. The content of letters, advertisements, signed columns, cartoons and graphics does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Tufts Daily editorial board.

Sincerely, John Barker, Dean Undergraduate and Graduate Students Schools of Arts and Sciences and of Engineering Bill Gehling Director of Athletics Schools of Arts and Sciences and of Engineering

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letters must be submitted by 2 p.m. and should be handed into the Daily office or sent to letters@tuftsdaily.com.

All letters must be word processed and include the writer’s name and telephone number. There is a 450-word limit and letters must be verified.

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Thursday, January 24, 2013

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To see or not 2 °C by

Cooper McKim

To some, climate change means fewer polar bears. To others, it means an increase in the frequency and power of natural disasters.

To us Tufts students, it means a disproportionate burden on people in least developed countries, especially people of color in the global south. It means generations of profligate industrialization, it means the hottest year in America on record, and it means injustice and inequality. Climate change stands for a call to action for students not to let our world crumble due to the inaction of our decision makers. Divestment from the fossil fuel industry is one crucial tactic to announce our generation’s symbolic rise to the occasion: We will not let our Earth warm to two degrees Celsius.

“To see or not 2 °C?” is the hallmark question when thinking about climate change. Two degrees Celsius, or 3.4 degrees Fahrenheit, is decidedly (through international and scientific consensus) the uppermost limit of warming to retain a livable climate for human civilization, and many scientists believe even this is too generous an estimate. So far, humans have raised the temperature of Earth 0.8 degrees Celsius and just this has caused our oceans to become 30 percent more acidic and one-third of our summer-sea ice to melt, as well as a drought last summer and one of the most destructive hurricanes to hit the Northeast, according to an article by 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben. As McKibben wrote: “The official position of planet Earth at the moment is that we can’t raise the temperature more than two degrees Celsius — it’s become the bottomest of bottom lines.” Despite this fact and that a large majority (61 percent) of Americans show sympathy for the goals of the environmental movement, our political representatives have not even hinted at measures to turn this metaphorical ship around.

Here’s where we, Tufts students, come in.

This past year, the Tufts Divests campaign was initiated on our campus and has since gained national recognition along with similar groups on over 200 other campuses devoted to the cause. Forbes, The New York Times, NPR, The Nation and many other national news sources have written articles regarding this burgeoning student movement. We aim to embolden and encourage our respective Board of Trustees to divest our substantial endowment from the fossil fuel industry. We must divest from this industry for one simple reason: it currently holds 2,795 gigatons of potential carbon dioxide in its reserves, or five times the amount necessary to stay under two

Oliver Porter / The Tufts Daily

degrees Celsius.

We do not have to wait until two degrees Celsius to see the effects of climate change on human life. According to a 2000 report

by Abt associates, an average of 20,000 people a year are killed due to the burning of coal, natural gas and oil, from direct and indirect pollution exposure. Power plants are placed in communities without the political power to take action against them and studies — including a 2007 EPA risk assessment — have shown this has caused increased levels of cancer. It has loaded the dice for irregularly strong and frequent droughts, famines and natural disasters, all of which have killed millions, according to McKibben’s article. Yet we still get a majority of our energy from these sources.

If we remain silent and allow our Earth to continue to warm, a study conducted by the governments of 20 nations shows that 100 million people are estimated to die from the impacts of climate change, and the global economy will suffer a 3.2 percent reduction in potential output by 2030. An international report last fall found that 90 percent of those deaths will occur in developing countries.

Despite all of this, our government still has not done the one thing that could stop this global crisis: put a price on car-

bon pollution to regulate the fossil fuel industry, the primary perpetrator of these injustices.

We know divesting is not going to be easy but as students whose futures are on the line we must assert what we know is right. When the adults in charge won’t lead, students must take matters into their own hands.

Where would South Africa be if the student apartheid divestment movement did not put up a fight for decades? Nelson Mandela has said that the campus divestment movement, as it rippled out from college campuses to national legislation, was a primary political force in ending apartheid. In other words, if students had turned a blind eye to the atrocities of apartheid South Africa instead of taking action to divest, the destructive regime could still hold power today.

Divestment from fossil fuels has already started to ripple out in the same way. The success of only Unity and Hampshire Colleges in divesting their endowments has caused a huge gain in momentum.

This past December, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn announced that he is working towards divesting the pension fund from the fossil fuel industry, and making sure city funds never get invested in the fossil fuel industry. This is only the beginning.

Every student and alumnus who comes

out in support gives momentum to the overall goal of getting legislators’ attention by framing the fossil fuel industry as detrimental to human society. So far, 1,100 Tufts students have signed on to divestment, as well as 200 alumni. Tufts alum investment professional Micheal Kramer wrote, “I pledge to withhold donations to Tufts until the university divests ... Alumni do not want to support fossil fuels, so failure to divest continues to be a missed opportunity for the university. Alumni want Tufts to be a true ‘Light on the Hill’ and not exploit people or the planet to fund its important mission of educating students.”

“To see or not 2 °C” is the defining question of our generation. Will we choose action and face the problem that shows no sign of slowing down, or do we let two degrees Celsius overtake us? If left to its own devices, the fossil fuel industry owns and plans to burn far too much carbon for a livable planet.

As students, we have a moral and existential obligation to challenge them.

Cooper McKim is a freshman who has yet to declare a major. He can be reached at cooper.mckim@tufts.edu.

Groundbreaking Hotness Index sparks stampede of Baby Jumbos by

Nick Ryder

The secret is out. On Jan. 18, 2013, an article in the student-run Tufts Daily revealed that online college dating platform DateMySchool recently released an index rating student and alumni “hotness” at six schools in the Boston area.

Tufts ranked low in both gender categories. While the results of this index came as no surprise to the unattractive members of the Tufts community, widespread circulation of the Daily article has had a tragic effect on prospective students.

This year’s admissions record was projected to be a groundbreaking one. A Jan. 17 Tufts Now article explains that over 18,000 applications have already been received with more being counted every day. The article also states “the Class of 2017 will be the university’s most selective ever.” Obviously, this confident statement was made before the Daily article was published.

The response was instantaneous. After the article was published to the Tufts Daily website, a recent regular decision admit posted a link onto the Tufts’ Class of 2017 Facebook page. Within hours, it had accumulated thousands of shares and disparaging comments. The post received zero likes. By the following morning, it was clear that regular decision applicants had also learned of Tufts’ esthetically abysmal student body. “We were all astounded,” said Gran Dayson, Associate Director of

Admission, “Every year we have several students who withdraw their applications for financial reasons, that’s normal. But today we were shocked to find over twothousand unique withdrawal requests already in our inboxes.” Dayson explained that the admissions office has been frantically trying to process the overwhelming deluge of phone calls and emails from previously prospective students, understandably averse to joining a community of unsightly pachyderms.

Attractiveness has indelibly been an integral part of the college selection process, with recent studies from the United States Ministry of Truth showing that aggregate, objective beauty of a school is a stronger indicator of academic achievement than both quality of instructor and average high school GPA. While the aesthetic metrics of students used to be privately held information, popular review websites such as College Prowler and Unigo have been waging the battle to make this information more available to the public for years. Traditionally, such websites have been only explored by a fraction of prospective students, thus explaining Tufts’ previous years of competitive admission rates. But now, as is already evident in the admissions office, the spread of the DateMySchool Hotness Index is finally exposing Tufts’ best kept secret for all to see.

“It was only a matter of time,” sighed Dayson as he slowly peeled away his

trimmed eyebrows and beautifully-symmetrical-mouth plaster cast. “Years of hiring Boston College students”- who ranked highest on the Hotness Index- “to conduct our tours and pose for our brochures could only last for so long. We have been anticipating this ever since we beat out Taylor Swift on the NYT ‘Meh list’.”

The admissions office has since relieved the Boston College students from duty and is now looking for a buyer of severalhundred attractive student holograms which had been used on campus tours.

Estimates are still being constructed but the admissions office is planning for the worst. “We would be ecstatic if admission rates leveled out at World War Twoera levels,” said Dayson. Both Medford and Somerville immediately passed landmark legislation, first proposed in 1853, that enables the construction of a wall around the Tufts undergraduate campus to decrease public complaints and increase tourism revenue. Nationwide, top-ranked schools are beginning to disclose pictures of accepted students to the public, much to the praise of college counselors and prep programs and CommonApp has since indicated that they will require the attachment of a personal photo to their application within two years.

As the dynamic of college admissions changes before our eyes, the atmosphere on the Tufts campus is a surprising one.

Senior Lowie Hevine explained the shared

response: “I know it. You know it. The locals know it. DateMySchool is just stating the obvious, who cares if the rest of the world knows?” The news was even received well by some members of the Tufts community.

Freshman Kooper McCim said, “I was glad that the article was written. It explained to my parents something I have been trying to tell them for years. It also gave me another object I could use to cover my face when I go into public.”

Despite its damning results, the DateMySchool Hotness Index appears to have had no negative effect on the spirit of most Jumbos. The objective ranking of a subjective quality does not seem to have incited a single ugly frown and the restriction of gender identification to two categories produced no grody tears of shame.

Incredulously, the Tufts community seems to unanimously accept its place at the bottom of the beauty barrel, despite the obvious importance of image-obsession and singular definitions of attractiveness as defined by commercial media. United by radical notions of “support for individual expression” and “love of life in all its forms” it appears that The Hill will forever remain the stomping ground for the future ugly leaders of our increasingly ugly world.

Nick Ryder is a freshman who has not declared a major. He can be reached at nicholas.ryder@tufts.edu.

Op-ed Policy The Op-Ed section of The Tufts Daily, an open forum for campus editorial commentary, is printed Monday through Thursday. The Daily welcomes submissions from all members of the Tufts community; the opinions expressed in the Op-Ed section do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Daily itself. Opinion articles on campus, national and international issues should be 600 to 1,200 words in length. Op-Ed cartoons are also welcomed for the Campus Canvas feature. All material is subject to editorial discretion and is not guaranteed to appear in the Daily. All material should be submitted to oped@tuftsdaily.com no later than noon on the day prior to the desired day of publication; authors must submit their telephone numbers and day-of availability for editing questions. Submissions may not be published elsewhere prior to their appearance in the Daily, including but not limited to other on- and off-campus newspapers, magazines, blogs and online news websites, as well as Facebook. Republishing of the same piece in a different source is permissible as long as the Daily is credited with originally running the article.

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Comics

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Doonesbury

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Garry Trudeau

Non Sequitur

Tuesday’s Solution

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SUDOKU Level: Trying to buy Malia or Sasha’s inauguration dresses

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Vidya: “I knew a kid named Earth. He chose his own name at 18.”

Nina: “What was his name before?”

Vidya: “Steve.”

Please recycle this Daily.

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Sophomore Hugo Meggitt struggled over the weekend as the Jumbos fell in all three of their matches.

Men lose three, women one, as Jumbos continue to slide SQUASH

continued from page 16

straight sets. Part of a young team without any seniors, Advani brings a strong squash background and has been able to jump into college squash seamlessly, as he has posted a 9-3 record so far this season.

“Aditya is a shooter. He has deadly shots, is very accurate and has very good touch, unlike the more American style of over-

powering and outlasting an opponent,” Kardon said. “We have a really young team, with a very bright future, and Aditya is an important part of that.”

Upcoming for the Jumbos is a roundrobin tournament at Bowdoin this weekend, followed by the NESCAC championships a week later.

On the women’s team, the Jumbos only had one match this weekend against

Conn. College, in which they were defeated 8-1. This lone victory came from sophomore Paige Dahlman, who won her match in four sets, 11-5, 7-11, 11-3, 11-5, in a matchup of No. 2’s. Three other matches were taken to four sets, but the Jumbos were unable to apply any serious pressure.

Despite the difficult stretch the team has been on, spirits are high, according

to senior co-captain Jessica Rubine. The team looks forward to matches this weekend at Bowdoin.

“We have some of our most important matches coming up, and I think just having confidence in ourselves will come a long way,” Rubine said. “The match against Conn. College wasn’t a blow out, and playing in these tough matches will help us going forward.”

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The International House is recruiting new residents for Academic Year 2013-2014! 3 Doubles, 1 Triple and 7 Singles available. Must be willing to participate in the Intercultural Conversation Program.

U.S. and international students are welcome to apply. Applications at http://ase.tufts.edu/icenter/default. htm.

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All classifieds submitted by mail must be accompanied by a check. Classifieds are $15 per week or $4 per day with Tufts ID or $30 per week or $8 per day without. The Tufts Daily is not liable for any damages due to typographical errors or misprintings except the cost of the insertion, which is fully refundable. We reserve the right to refuse to print any classifieds which contain obscenity, are of an overly sexual nature or are used expressly to denigrate a person or group. Questions? Email business@tuftsdaily.com.

Jumbo women take first place at Bowdoin Invitational TRACK-AND-FIELD

continued from page 16

tively, in the shot-put. Freshman Alex Karys notched a jump of six feet in the high jump, just barely behind eventual victor Stephen Silber of RPI, to claim fifth.

Though the team entered the competition without their top athletes in every event, the Jumbos emerged basically unscathed and locked down a number of highlight performances to boot.

“A win would have been nice, but I don’t think we got anything less than we deserved,” freshman Woody Butler said.

The Tufts women had a slightly different experience, overcoming host Bowdoin by two points to hold on for the win. With six victories—two in track events, four in field events—and 15 top-three results, the Jumbos primed themselves for a showdown against the Polar Bears later in the season, a team that figures to be a top contender in the NESCAC. Unlike the relatively inexperienced men’s team, the women’s team brought plenty of star power to the meet despite missing a number of top runners who raced earlier in the week. They displayed this balance early on and maintained it throughout the course of the meet.

Veteran distance runners senior Toby Crispin and junior Laura Peterson earned the two wins on the track. Crispin won the mile with a time of 5:17.48, and Peterson did the same in the 3000 with a time of 10:33:55. Peterson only had to edge out her teammates as the Jumbos swept the event with sophomore Meghan Gillis, freshman Michelle de Mars, senior Lydia Jessup and freshman Alexandra Kiesling rounding out

Justin McCallum / Tufts Daily

Junior Max Levitin ran 24.99 in the 200-meter dash as the Jumbos finished third at the Bowdoin Invitational. the top five.

“Crispin had a great day,” freshman Sydney Smith said. “She didn’t have much competition in her mile, and she still pushed herself to run for time, not just [for] the win.”

Though there were no individual victories in the sprinting events, Tufts still picked up a great deal of points in those events. Junior Jana Hieber placed third in the 60-meter hurdles in 9.89 seconds, while freshman Marilyn Allen finished third in the 60-meter dash in 8.30 seconds.

As they have since last year, the Jumbos were strongest in the field events, where they produced four of their six event-winners.

Seniors Sabienne Brutus and Ronke Oyekunle won the weight throw and shot put, respectively, with ease. Brutus won her event by about seven feet, heaving the weight 57 feet on the nose.

Oyekunle’s toss of 42’8” landed her over three feet ahead of Ivy Muchuma of RPI, who finished second.

Freshmen Leah Potter and Emily Smithwick rounded out the victories for

Jumbos go 1-2 on the weekend against tough competition MEN’S SWIMMING

Sunday’s tri-meet saw continued strong performances from the Jumbos. Winget won the 100-yard and 200-yard backstroke, and also placed second in the 400-yard individual medley, all in personal best times.

His weekend performances earned him NESCAC Performer of the Week, making him the second freshman to earn the award this year, along with Anthony Debenedetto, who won the award in November.

With their recent successes, Debenedetto, Winget and Simko have thrown themselves into the conference championship picture.

continued from page 16

“[They] have raced extremely well up to this point and I think the three of them are in a position to challenge the top swimmers in our league,” Hoyt said. “As freshmen that’s an exciting opportunity to have.”

Their times also stacked up well in the dual meet against Boston College, as the freshmen won a combined five events. Berman and Douglas each won one of their races, yet the Jumbos were unable to match the depth of their Division I opponent.

The biggest surprise of the weekend, however, came in the diving well, as junior diver Johann Schmidt lost to Williams sophomore Rohann Bhatt in

a rare Division III loss for the reigning national champion.

Coach Brad Snodgrass seemed unworried about the loss. Schmidt’s improved 3-meter dives and his bigmeet experience make him a favorite to repeat his NESCAC and national titles.

“He’s improving every day, so I like his chances at both meets,” Snodgrass said. “We’re trying to stay focused on improving and doing just a little better each day.”

The Jumbos will compete next on Jan. 26 at home against Wheaton College. Winget and Schmidt will take a backseat to the seniors, who will be competing in their final home meet on Senior Day.

Jumbos prepare for final stretch WOMEN’S SWIMMING continued from page 16

third place finishes by freshmen swimmers Maddie Golison and Sam Swinton.

However, according to Bigelow, the team could not have pulled out a victory against Wesleyan if it weren’t for the strong performance from the diving squad.

With junior Sami Bloom returning to action after a semester abroad, the diving squad was in full force and had strong showings at both meets.

This weekend’s outings came after the Jumbos spent the last two weeks of winter break in Puerto Rico, where they worked on base and fitness training,

making this weekend’s events particularly draining.

“The trip is always tiring physically and mentally,” Bloom said. “This meet is always about rising up because everyone went on the same trip and is feeling it.”

For many swimmers, this weekend marks the last meet before the two-week long shave and taper process, where swimmers prepare for their final races of the season.

According to Bigelow, the upcoming Wheaton Invitational will be ideal both for the swimmers who are ending their seasons and for the 24 swimmers who will continue on to the conference champi-

onships two weeks later.

“I’m looking forward to everyone doing their best times,” Bigelow said. “They’ve been putting in a lot of hard work. We just want people to feel happy and satisfied that they’ve reached the goals they set for themselves.”

Bigelow expects the team to finish in the middle of the NESCAC pack, a slightly lower expectation than last year’s finish. As Bigelow described, the team is younger this year than in previous ones. ` “They’ll do their best and go out there and fight to the end but you have to be realistic,” Bigelow said. “If we finish in the middle of the pack that’s a successful season.”

the Jumbos. Potter cleared 5’25” in the high jump, with Smithwick winning the pole vault by clearing 10’10”.

“The fact that we were still able to come out with the win is really exciting,” Peterson said. “I think the team is really coming together and is in good shape going into the next couple months.”

Both teams will compete at the Terrier Classic at Boston University on Jan. 25.

Women’s Basketball

Tufts rallies in second half at Emmanuel, avoiding upset effort to improve to 19-0 It was an anxious Wednesday night for No. 6 Tufts, who traveled to Emmanuel College for a key non-conference matchup.

Facing a team that went as far as the Elite Eight this past season, the Jumbos trailed by two at the break, allowing the Saints to shoot a gaudy 46 percent in the first half.

But the Jumbos came out in the second half with renewed vigor, opening on a 12-2 run and only allowing the Saints to score four points in the first eight minutes.

The result was a 19th straight win for Tufts, 61-48, and the retention of their perfect season.

Early on, it looked like Tufts was destined to repeat their thrashing of Emmanuel last season, when they won 73-35 at Cousens Gymnasium.

The Jumbos kept the Saints from scoring for four minutes to begin the game, and led by as much as seven before a 12-2 run gave Emmanuel its first lead of the night.

The Saints were dominant in the paint, posting a plus-seven rebounding margin in the first half, and Tufts was lucky that they didn’t trail by more at the break, as Emmanuel missed four free throws that could have created a comfortable margin.

Things went from bad to worse in the opening minutes of the second half.

Sophomore Hannah Foley, the team’s leading scor-

er both for the season and on the night to that point, picked up her third foul and was forced to the bench less than three minutes in.

She’d return around the 10-minute mark, only to pick up another foul almost immediately.

With their go-to scorer sidelined, the rest of the team stepped up.

Senior co-captain forward Bre Dufault finished with 13 points and seven rebounds on 5-of-9 shooting, and at times it seemed she could hit from anywhere on the court.

Sophomore point guard Kelsey Morehead was able to get by her defender with a head fake and drive the lane at will, scoring 12 points on 6-of-7 shooting, including her own 6-0 run to put the game out of reach in the second half. Morehead also had four steals, and the team finished with 13 as a group.

Having staved off the Saints’ upset bid, the Jumbos will be rewarded with one of their easiest weekends on the NESCAC calendar, a single-header at Bates on Saturday.

The Bobcats are just 3-3 in conference and 9-8 on the season, though they do post the NESCAC’s fourth-best scoring offense.

—by Ethan Sturm

Sports

16

tuftsdaily.com

Women’s Swimming and Diving

Men’s Swimming and Diving

Scott Tingley / Tufts Daily ARCHIVES

Junior Jenny Hu took first place in the 100-yard breastroke in the Jumbos’ dual meet against MIT on Saturday.

Jumbos finish 1-2 after winter break by

Claire Sleigh

Daily Editorial Board

After a month-long break from racing, the women’s swimming and diving team hit the water hard with back-to-back races this weekend. They lost in a rout to top-ranked MIT on Saturday, but came back on Sunday in a tri-meet against NESCAC rivals Williams and Wesleyan at Williams.

After the 266-109 loss to the Engineers, the Jumbos fell 198-100 to the Ephs, again losing to the top-ten ranked team.

With the Ephs out of their reach, the Jumbos honed in instead on the Cardinals, who beat them at the same meet last year.

It was a tight race between the Jumbos and the Cardinals, but the 200-yard freestyles relay team of sophomores Kathryn Coniglio, Scarlett Hao and Samantha Sliwinski and

junior Jenny Hu pulled through in the last event of the day to give the Jumbos a 160128 lead over the Cardinals.

The Jumbos posted their season-best time in the event by a second. According to Hu, who swam the third leg of the race, the atmosphere was energetic.

“We lost to Wesleyan last year, and we definitely wanted it more than they did this year,” she said.

According to coach Nancy Bigelow, Wesleyan has a strong but small squad, which the Jumbos were able to overwhelm with depth, such as in the 1650-yard freestyle, in which the Jumbos finished third, fourth, and fifth.

The 200-yard butterfly was another strong event for the Jumbos, with second-andsee WOMEN’S SWIMMING, page 15

Men’s and Women’s Track and Field

Men’s and women’s teams perform well at Bowdoin Invitational

by Sam

Gold

Daily Editorial Board

Both the men’s and women’s track and field teams trekked up to Maine Saturday for the Bowdoin Invitational. The meet was promising for both teams’ late season prospects, as the men excelled in distance events and the women took home six individual victories.

The men arrived at Bowdoin shorthanded, racing with just half the team, yet still amassed enough high finishes in order to place third of four. Bowdoin won on their home track with 200 points, while RPI placed second with 159 and Tufts earned 108, 27 ahead of Springfield’s total of 81.

Because the top scorers traveled to Boston University for a meet on Thursday evening, the meet was dominated by underclassmen who often found themselves peppered among the leaders in each event.

Freshman Bryson Hoover-Hankerson took third in the 60-meter dash with a time of 7.34 seconds and finished one place better in the long jump with a leap of 20 feet 3.5 inches.

Fellow freshman Woody Butler placed second in the 400 with a tremendous earlyseason performance of 52.38 seconds.

“Every one of the first year guys has been running well and is poised to continue to bust out big [personal records] as the season progresses,” junior sprinter Max Levitin said.

Sophomores Alex Sheltzer and Alex Schifter teamed up in the 600 to take second and third place, respectively, with Sheltzer crossing the line less than half a second before his teammate.

The lone individual victory of the day was recorded by freshman Mitchell Black, who won the 800-meter run by almost three seconds. The freshman also came in second in the triple jump, where he was defeated narrowly by Springfield’s Tim Johansmeyer.

The Jumbos also fared well in field events aside from the long jump and high jump.

Senior Andre Figueroa and freshman A.J. Fields finished fourth and fifth, respecsee TRACK-AND-FIELD, page 15

Courtesy Johann Schmidt

Johann Schmidt dealt with a rare loss to Williams on Sunday afternoon, but still picked up wins against MIT and Boston College.

Schmidt suffers rare loss, coach unconcerned by

Ross Dember

Contributing Writer

The men’s swimming and diving team entered this past weekend set to take on its biggest challenges of the season.

Returning to the pool for the first time in over a month and a half, the Jumbos lost to No. 1 MIT (205-101) on Saturday before splitting its tri-meet on Sunday, losing to No. 11 Williams (184105) and defeated Wesleyan (218-59). Its stretch of three meets in four days ended Tuesday after a hard-fought dual meet loss to Boston College (205-146). The Jumbos are now 3-4 overall and 3-1 in the NESCAC. On Saturday, MIT won all but two of the events, but the Jumbos, fresh off a winter break of training, showed prom-

ise. Junior Christian Jones came from behind to win the 1,000-yard freestyle, and freshman Michael Winget placed first in the 50-yard backstroke. Second place finishes by freshman Cam Simko and juniors Eric Douglas and Drew Berman, as well as seasonal and personal bests in nearly every event, gave coach Adam Hoyt confidence that his team will be ready for the NESCAC championships in a month.

Hoyt credited the individual improvements to the training trip the team took to Florida over the break.

“It’s grueling training for three to five hours per day with only one day off in 12 days,” Hoyt said. “They stepped up to the challenge and kept a high level of focus.” see MEN’S SWIMMING, page 15

Men’s and Women’s Squash

Tufts squash goes 0-4 on the weekend

by Jason Schneiderman

Contributing Writer

The men’s and women’s squash teams returned to action this past weekend after more than a month off the court, both looking for a jumpstart to the second halves of their seasons after frustrating losses before winter break. The men stood at 5-4 heading into their three match weekend, while the women entered their match against Boston College at 2-4.

The men’s team began the weekend against Conn. College, where they were forced to play shorthanded after an injury to sophomore co-captain and team No. 2 Zachary Schweitzer forced every Jumbo to slide up a rung in the ladder.

“The injury made us slightly less competitive,” sophomore Elliot Kardon said. “Team morale got a little low, because we knew everyone had to play at a higher level.”

The Jumbos were unable to overcome the injury, and their mid-season struggles continued with a 9-0 loss at Conn. College on Saturday, followed by hard-fought 6-3 and 7-2 losses

against Hobart College and Stanford University, respectively.

Against Hobart, freshmen Aditya Advani and Brandon Weiss joined Kardon as winners. Advani and Silverman were the lone winners for the Jumbos against Stanford.

Tufts had their chances in the second two matches, though, with one five-set and three four-set losses against the Herons and one five-set loss to the Cardinals. Kardon, the team’s No. 5 on the day took his Saturday match 11-9, 11-3, 11-8 and was happy with the team’s overall effort and felt that with a couple more breaks, the two later matches could have gone their way.

“Conn. College was tough, but Hobart and Stanford, who are traditionally rivals of ours, we played very close,” Kardon said. “Without Zach’s injury, I would have liked our chances.”

One notable bright spot from the matches was freshman standout and team No. 1 Advani, who paced Tufts with two match wins on the weekend in see SQUASH, page 14